Candy Review

The first of the Halloween candies! It seems that each year finding new, original Halloween candy just gets harder and harder to come across. So far, this year candy hunt has felt a bit easier than past years. Yes, I did see many repeats from years past, and like old friends I am happy to see them again. I’m happy when a seasonal candy is successful. Which, leads me to today’s gem of a find, as I squealed out loud when I saw it in its display: The Cadbury Scream Egg!

It seems Cadbury has finally solved the issue of the CCE only being available at Easter. We now have a Halloween variety, with a very clever name to match! The wrapper sports a black, green and purple color scheme, and it feels very festive. The Cadbury Bunny was shown on the display wearing a wizard’s hat. I will certainly scream at the cuteness!

I unwrap the foil on the CSE, and it looks the same as the CCE. It has the same outer rings on the edges and the star etched into the middle. It smells the same as a CCE. It’s sweet with an intense dry milk dairy scent to it. So familiar and so awesome.

The flavor is just as I remember it. The chocolate is smooth and sweet with the same dairy notes to it as the aroma. It’s creamy with a slight yogurt tang. The nougat cream center is thick and very sweet. The “yolk” is green. Clever! The flavor of it is, sweet of course, with very slight flavors of vanilla and a hint of coconut in there. The texture is slightly grainy and yet so smooth. It’s just a good as the regular CCE from Easter.

So here you go CCE fans! Finally you can get your CCEs during another time of the year. As for myself, I am very happy about it. Now I wait 6 months instead of a year for my fix. I hope you all are as excited about this as I am, as it feels that if any other holiday would make room for a CCE, it would be Halloween.

Today is the last of my string of 5 Gum reviews, at least for now. I have been trying so hard to try candies that are a little out of my “normal” range, and for me, that means gum! Combined with the fact that it still a tad warm here in Los Angeles, having a candy that won’t melt is another plus. Swerve I saved for last for no particular reason, or maybe I should just say I did it all in alphabetical order. Either way, I’m curious to see what this also colorful man-centered gum has to offer.

Swerve. I am not sure about the name of this gum. When I think of “swerve” I think of an unsafe maneuver one does while driving a car. Its feels dangerous and full of adrenaline. I open the package to find three neat rows of gum wrapped in bright orange foil. It smells very tropical. I get notes of passion fruit, pineapple and peaches with a kiss of mint.

The stick of gum is a light orange color and is very pliable and soft. I begin to chew and I immediately get bright flavors of peaches, oranges and pineapple. I also taste a light hint of mint in there, but it’s very faint. I chew for about a minute and am surprised to find that the gum’s texture is getting tough and hard incredibly fast. The flavor as well quickly disappears. So sad!

Out of all the 5 Gum flavors that I’ve tried to date, this one was my favorite. It was sweet and tropical, like a good vacation. It’s really too bad that the flavor disappears so quickly. Alas, some gum is just like that. Regardless, if you want to give the 5 Gum line a try, this one would be my fruity recommendation for testing the waters.

Onto the third of the 5 Gum flavors that I’ve gathered to review. This one immediately confused me. RPM? What am I supposed to make out of that? What flavor am I supposed to surmise? What hint am supposed to glean? Other than, you know, the fact that this is clearly marketed to men with a name like that. Since I am not a man, maybe I am not meant to understand. Despite their marketing ploys, I do have taste buds, so I will get to the bottom of what RPM is about.

RPM can apply to a few things. I think of record players and car engines. Dude things, I suppose. The sticks of gum are wrapped in a lemon-lime yellow green and have an interesting aroma. It smells fruity with a spicy edge to it. Not sure if to say the scent is herbal or not, but it makes me think of apple pie for a strange reason. It’s similar to smelling a fresh cinnamon stick, somehow.

The gum’s aroma gets even stranger as I pull it out to chew. The spicy note I detected earlier is even more powerful now, and it reminds me of potpourri. I ask myself if I really want to taste this gum that badly. The stick of gum is a nice light yellow, and trying not to think more about it, I pop the piece in my mouth. The flavor stars off fruity, but it reminds me of how red licorice tastes. Something about it just tasted “red”. The flavor is metallic and has notes of cherries. Oddly enough the flavor gets somewhat sour the more I chew it, which I find interesting. Again, the flavor and texture quickly deteriorate as you chew, and soon it becomes faint and tough.

This flavor was, tasty but odd. I am not sure if it’s something I would specifically crave. But, if in a bind I’d certainly have it again. It’s not favorite, but it’s certainly tastier than many. If only it lasted longer!

Onto the second of my 5 Gum reviews, today is 5 Cobalt. Out of all the different 5 Gums that I collected for this series of reviews, Cobalt was the only one that I was able to guess the flavor just by reading the name. I like the theme of having these “cool” names for the gum instead of just announcing the flavors, even if it does make it a little confusing at times.

Cobalt is a really great name for a gum. It sounds bold and powerful, as well as evoking a deep blue minty color. The fact that the majority of the package is black also enhances this effect. The foil on the wrappers is an intense cerulean blue, and it’s really pretty. This gum just exudes the feeling of being refreshed. I take a whiff and it smells like an interesting mix of spearmint and wintergreen.

The gum itself is a intense blue color and it’s a lot more saturated than I would have expected. The flavor starts off powerfully minty and tastes like wintergreen with a frosty flavor accented with sweetness. As you chew, you then experience the more pronounced hot and spicy flavors of spearmint. They just kick in and gives it a really complex, incredibly refreshing minty flavor. Sadly, the flavors don’t last very long, most are well gone by the time I have been chewing for two minutes.

The brevity of the flavor in this gum, no matter how tasty, makes me hesitate to bring this gum into my inner circle of “amazing candy that I’ll buy all the time”. However, the flavor is good enough that if I was handed this for free, by a friend, or at the candy table at work, I would certainly take a few pieces after lunch. Point being, Cobalt is tasty, so if I ever need a quick breath freshener, this gum would certainly fit the bill. Isn’t that one of gum’s jobs in the first place anyways?

Gum is already somewhat of a neglected candy for me, as it’s something I don’t buy often but I do try to review for the blog when I see something interesting. 5 Gum us a brand that I don’t pay very much attention to. I believe it’s a gum that market to men, with its intense black background and names like “React Squared”. So as a female you can imagine that I a drawn toward the more colorful “Fruity Unicorn Sparkle” flavors than these intense looking gums in black packaged with names that refer to energy outputs. But that it exactly why I decided that I needed to give 5 Gum a few tries.

The gum is wrapped in black foil, which is very striking looking. They almost disappear into the packaging. The gum smells like a mix of jam and cherry pie. It’s very juicy and fruity smelling.

I was taken aback to see that the stick of gum is dark grey in color. I don’t think I’ve ever seen gum colored like that before. The texture is incredibly soft as you begin to chew. The flavor is very fruity, and bring up the flavors of dark cherries. I also get notes of cola and some metallic notes. The flavor comes across as very flavorful and juicy. The flavor quickly starts to fade as you get into chewing for about a minute. As the taste mellows, it reminds me of red licorice: fruity and “red”. It’s a nice flavor, it’s just a shame it doesn’t last longer.

It seems this gum suffers from the “gum paradox” that I’ve heard other bloggers refer to. The tastier the gum is, the shorter the time the flavor lasts. So even though I am not the biggest fan of cherry gum, it was still more tasty than some gums I’ve had. Alas, the flavor is almost completely gone in the first minute that you chew it. I can see this working for you if you only wanted a quick flavor pick me up. Personally I like something with a little more stamina. I like my flavor to last longer. That’s not to say that this gum is bad, it just was really tasty and would have liked to experience this gum longer, that’s all.